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Ethnic and Racial Studies

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I know who I am, but who do they think I am?
Muslim perspectives on encounters with airport
authorities

Leda Blackwood , Nick Hopkins & Steve Reicher

To cite this article: Leda Blackwood , Nick Hopkins & Steve Reicher (2013) I know who I am, but
who do they think I am? Muslim perspectives on encounters with airport authorities, Ethnic and
Racial Studies, 36:6, 1090-1108, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2011.645845

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2011.645845

Published online: 30 Jan 2012.

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I know who I am, but who do they think I

am? Muslim perspectives on encounters

with airport authorities

Leda Blackwood, Nick Hopkins and Steve Reicher

(First submission January 2011; First published January 2012)

Abstract
In this paper we report an analysis of individual and group interviews
with thirty-eight Scottish Muslims concerning their encounters with
authority � especially those at airports. Our analysis shows that a key
theme in interviewees’ talk of their experience in this context concerns the
denial and misrecognition of valued identities such as being British, being
respectable and being Muslim. One reason why such experiences are so
problematic concerns the denial of agency associated with being posi-
tioned in terms that are not one’s own. The implications of these findings
for understanding the dynamics of intergroup relations are discussed.

Keywords: Social identities; national identity; social exclusion; Muslims; border

surveillance; belonging.

That’s the debate, Andrew. That is absolutely the heart of the
debate. And the West’s gotta resolve this debate. Is the reason
why they’re like that because of us, or is it actually because of
them? Now, my view in the end is we should stop being in a
situation where we think we’ve caused this. We haven’t caused
this. (Tony Blair, BBC interview, 1 September, 2010)

Analysing tensions between Britain and the Muslim world, Britain’s
former Prime Minister denies that much is to be gained from examining
‘our’ own actions: rather, the focus is squarely on ‘them’. Blaming the
other can be comforting. However, the costs can be significant: if one
continues to act without regard for how one’s actions impact on the
other there is little chance for any improvement in intergroup relations.
Indeed, there is every chance of a further deterioration.

Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2013
Vol. 36, No. 6, 1090�1108, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2011.645845

# 2013 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2011.645845

Yet, reflection on one’s own actions and their impact is not so easy.
It requires adopting the perspective of the other and how one’s own
actions shape the other’s experience. Asymmetries of power can make
appreciation of other people’s lived experiences and of one’s own role
in that experience particularly difficult. But, no matter how hard, such
an exercise is crucial, and here we seek to take seriously the issue of
British Muslims’ experiences of authority. Specifically, we consider
their accounts of how they feel they are treated by the police in British
airports. Such interactions may seem rather uneventful. Daily, many
thousands of passengers pass through British airports and some will
be stopped resulting in a short delay. However, from the vantage point
of Muslim passengers even such apparently uneventful interactions
can raise painful questions about how they are seen and positioned by
others, and what this means for how they may see themselves. Indeed,
in some respects, the everyday routine nature of such interactions adds
to their significance.

Below, we consider British Muslims’ identities and how these may
be shaped by their contacts with others. We then explain the context to
our research and the themes we pursue.

British Muslim identities

Europe’s Muslim communities are routinely viewed as ‘in’ Europe, but
not ‘of ’ Europe. Many of Europe’s majority populations view Muslims
with concern (Velasco Gonzalez et al. 2008). Certainly, many non-
Muslim Britons assume that British Muslims do not identify
themselves as British (Pew Global Attitudes Project, 2006), and such
views are sustained by essentialized images of Islam that depict
Muslims as an alien other.

However, many Muslims do identify as British (Maxwell 2006).
Moreover, identification as British and as Muslim is not a zero-sum
game: Britishness does not come at the expense of a Muslim
identification (Hopkins 2011). Indeed religious identities cannot be
considered without regard to the context in which they are located,
and this is well illustrated in ethnographic and interview research
which emphasizes the local quality to young Scottish males’ Muslim
identities (Hopkins 2007). Moreover, attending to the contextual
determinants of identity reminds us that identities are multiple and
that how one identifies in any given context depends on events and the
actions of others (Hopkins and Kahani-Hopkins 2004).

The research cited above cautions against the easy tendency to
assume that any difficulties in adopting a British identification arise
because of features inherent in either Islam or Britain’s Muslims.
Indeed, this research draws us to the investigation of how Muslims’
understandings of who they are may be affected by their interactions

I know who I am, but who do they think I am? 1091

with the non-Muslim majority. Accordingly, we now turn to research
concerning majority-minority relationships, especially research inves-
tigating the outcomes of intergroup contact encounters founded on
relationships of unequal power.

Majority-minority encounters

Intergroup contact is typically assumed to improve intergroup
relations. But, contact is not always a panacea. Contact has a reliable
(modest) impact upon intergroup perceptions, but this effect is
strongest for majorities (Tropp and Pettigrew 2005; Pettigrew and
Tropp 2006). Indeed, even when contact is structured to maximize
positive intergroup outcomes, minorities show less change than
majorities. Such asymmetries underline the importance of taking the
minority’s vantage point seriously: it seems the ‘same’ encounter may
be quite different for those with and those without power.

Yet, insight into minorities’ experiences of their contacts with
majorities is limited as few studies actually look at how minority
group members themselves construe their contact with majority group
members (Dixon, Durrheim and Tredoux 2005). In part this is because
the focus has been on how contact reduces majority group members’
prejudices; and in part because researchers have viewed contact
encounters in terms of a pre-defined checklist of factors believed to
make contact more or less ‘optimal’. What research we do have on
British Muslims highlights the mix of pleasures and costs associated
with acting as ambassadors for Islam (Hopkins, Greenwood and
Birchall 2007) and some of the concerns minorities may have about
how contact limits minority group members’ ability to act as a
cohesive group to secure change (Hopkins and Kahani-Hopkins
2006). But we know little of British Muslims’ lived experience of their
contact encounters with majority-group members, particularly with
those who are seen to represent the majority community, and we know
little about how this impacts on their sense of identity (Spalek and
Lambert 2008; Husband and Alam 2011).

Relations with authority

In some contexts intergroup interactions can sometimes be the cause
of (and not the solution to) intergroup antagonisms. Relations
between minorities and the police have often been difficult and
complaints about being treated as untrustworthy are common (e.g.
Jefferson and Walker 1993; Fine et al. 2003). In Britain, Muslims
complain about both formal and informal surveillance (Thiel 2009;
Choudhury and Fenwick 2011) and report that the expression of their
British and Muslim identities has been turned by others into topics of

1092 Leda Blackwood et al.

concern. This has widespread consequences for their everyday citizen-
ship (Hopkins and Blackwood 2011). It also results in more frequent
contacts with the authorities: recent developments in security legisla-
tion have increased the degree to which Muslims are subjected to ‘stop
and search’ powers. For example, Section 44 of the Terrorism Act
(2000) gives the police power to stop and search individuals in certain
areas without needing to have grounds of ‘reasonable suspicion’.
Critics have argued that such stops discriminate against Asians, and
data reviewed by Thiel (2009) for the Police Foundation show that
stops by the Metropolitan Police Service almost doubled between
2004/5 and 2005/6, with the rise in Asians being stopped being
particularly acute.

The psychological impact of such encounters is hard to gauge.
However, there is evidence that the police are understood to be
representatives of the broad majority community and that minorities
believe their own treatment reveals much about the degree to which
they are included (or not) in that community (Talbot and Bose 2007).
Issues of procedural justice and identity are key elements in these
dynamics: people expect fair treatment from those with whom they
share a common group identity (Lind and Tyler 1988) and to
experience what one believes is unfair treatment amounts to being
told by ‘prototypical’ representatives of society that one is not actually
regarded as a bone fide group member (Sunshine and Tyler 2003). This
can result in feelings of diminished self-worth and powerlessness
(Smith, Allen and Danley 2007). It can also result in a degree of
alienation from the authorities and reduced evaluations of police
legitimacy (e.g. Bradford, Jackson and Stanko 2009). To cite just one
recent study among American Muslims in New York (Tyler, Schulho-
fer and Huq 2010) there was strong evidence that perceived lack of
procedural justice led to a perception of authorities as illegitimate,
which in turn reduced willingness to cooperate voluntarily with
counter-terrorism measures.

Minority group members’ understandings of their experiences

At the outset we suggested that understanding intergroup tensions
requires attending to how the actions of the one party contribute to
the lived experience of the other. In the present context this implies
attending to Muslims’ experiences of the authorities’ actions. The data
relevant to such an investigation are diverse.

Some aspects of Muslims’ experience of the police’s behaviour
require quantitative data. Thus, if one were interested in the impact of
stop and search practices on Muslims’ orientation to the police one
could consider the number of people stopped, on what grounds and
with what outcome. Moreover, one could compare the figures with

I know who I am, but who do they think I am? 1093

those for other groups. Yet, such data are poorly recorded. For
example, in an investigation of the impact of counter-terrorism
measures on Britain’s Muslims, Choudhury and Fenwick (2011) note
that until 2010 there were no central records of stops at British
airports under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act (2000) if the duration
of the stop was less than one hour. In 2010 shorter stops were recorded
for the first time and show that over the year 85,557 stops took place
(of which only 2,687 lasted more than one hour). As data on the
(perceived) ethnic background of the stopped passenger were recorded
only for those stopped for more than an hour, it is difficult to establish
a clear picture of the degree to which Muslims are disproportionately
subject to police attention.

Other questions require more qualitative data concerning minority-
group members’ understandings of their experiences with authority
figures. Such qualitative data cannot address the questions described
above (e.g. whether Muslims are stopped disproportionately). Nor can
interview data support strong claims about what precisely happened in
any interaction (to speak with any confidence on this and how the
actions of the one party impacted upon the other one would need
ethnographic data complemented by interview data obtained from
Muslims and the authorities). However, qualitative data obtained with
Muslim participants allows us to begin to explore how people make
sense of their encounter and their beliefs about what it meant for them.

In what follows we present just such a study. We report qualitative
data obtained with Muslim participants concerning their experiences
with authority. At the outset we made no assumptions about which
encounters would be of importance to our participants. Rather, and in
keeping with our desire to appreciate the minority’s vantage point, we
simply sought to explore what sorts of encounters our participants
raised as being significant. In turn, we addressed the following
questions: How are these encounters experienced? Are issues of
identity implicated? If so, what identities are implicated and how?
Finally, to take the investigation one step further, we asked what is it
that makes the definition (and redefinition) of identity in such
encounters so significant?

Method

Sample

Our data were obtained through semi-structured interviews with
twenty-three Muslims and two focus-group discussions involving an
additional fifteen participants. We recruited participants in three
Scottish cities (Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow) through a range
of organizations (e.g. an Islamic student society, a Muslim youth

1094 Leda Blackwood et al.

group, mosques and a women’s centre). We attended various commu-
nity events including mosque open days and police-Muslim consulta-
tions, where we approached individuals directly. Finally, we asked
those we interviewed to recommend others to contact.

As we do not seek to make claims about the incidence of particular
events we did not seek a representative sample of participants. Rather,
we sought to gain insight into the range of experiences with authority
and the diverse ways in which encounters could be experienced and
interpreted. Hence we recruited across a range of ages, occupations
and ethnic backgrounds. The sample included professionals, business-
people, students and home-makers from a variety of ethnic back-
grounds (e.g. Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine and Saudi Arabia). Some
were born in the UK, and all were residents who self-identified as
British. Thirty-two participants were male and six were female. The
youngest participant was 19 and the oldest was in his sixties. The
sample is skewed towards older, middle-class males. This is because
initial contact in each city was made through a local mosque (however,
it bears repeating that our priority was to secure diversity rather than
representativeness). The interviews averaged one hour in length and
were conducted by the first author (a white Australian woman). While
there may be merit in the interviewer being Muslim, there are also
disadvantages associated with the interviewer being seen as sharing the
same identity as one’s respondents. Most obviously, insiders are
assumed to share common knowledge and hence to ask certain
questions would seem strange and awkward. People can be less willing
to elaborate upon their understandings and experiences because they
assume the questioner already knows the answer.

Interviews

The interviews followed a semi-structured schedule. We started by
inviting people to tell stories about memorable encounters they or
others had with authorities:

We are interested in the kinds of interactions, both good and bad,
that people are having with authorities. I want you to just tell stories
about interactions that made some impression on you. You can tell
as many stories as you like about experiences with anybody who you
perceive as having authority in society.

We asked people to be as detailed as possible and where appropriate
probed for additional information: What were the circumstances?
Who was there? What was said and done? In asking for stories,
we were not concerned with the objective reality of encounters, but
with how people made sense of these encounters. Often participants’

I know who I am, but who do they think I am? 1095

story-telling entailed considerable reflection on their emotions and
their thought processes. Where this was not the case, we probed
further.

Typically participants referred to various sites of interaction as
significant but a common topic was their experiences at British and
local Scottish airports. Indeed, in a number of cases people asked
explicitly: ‘Is this about airports?’ In such cases, we stressed it
concerned encounters significant to them, and that we were happy
to be guided by them. The prominence of airports in our data does not
imply that other samples would necessarily focus on airports to the
same degree. However, among our sample airport interactions seemed
to exemplify the issues they wished to discuss.

Participants reported experiences before departure and on arrival
associated with domestic, European and long-haul flights. As we
cannot investigate the specific dynamics of each encounter (as one
would if doing ethnography) and we have access only to participants’
accounts, we do not attempt to investigate whether participants’
experiences were different according to where they were flying to/from
and so on. Rather, we focus on their overall account of the experience,
especially if and how issues of identity feature. Accordingly, our
interviews touched on a wide range of topics, e.g. participants’
identifications as Scottish, British and Muslim, foreign policy,
relationships with fellow non-Muslim Britons and non-British Mus-
lims, etc.

Analytic strategy

Following Braun and Clarke (2006) we subjected these data to a
thematic analysis. In our first readings of the corpus we identified and
coded the types of encounters mentioned (i.e. what forms of authority
were involved, where the encounter took place) and whether these
encounters were judged positive, negative or ambiguous. Once we
identified the specific site of interest, we defined our dataset as those
sections of the interviews related to these encounters. Readings of this
dataset focused on identifying repeated patterns of meaning around
people’s understanding of the encounters. While we looked for
identity-related issues (i.e. encounters believed to reveal something
about participants’ relationship with authorities and society in
general) we did not limit ourselves to these themes. Our coding and
the development of themes proceeded through an iterative process of
reading and re-reading the dataset. As far as possible we kept to the
explicit meaning our participants gave the experience (Boyatzis 1998).

Our analysis is in three sections. First, we examine which sites are of
particular significance to people � as has already been intimated, there
was strong consensus here about the importance of airports. Second,

1096 Leda Blackwood et al.

we show how the experience of airport encounters turns on issues of
identity � we look at what identities are at stake and how people see
these identities as implicated in their airport experiences. Our purpose
here is not to be exhaustive. Rather, we have selected material that
illustrates the complexities of people’s diverse identity positions and
the ways in which people experience these identities being denied and
misrecognized. Third, we look at why the experience of being
misrecognized and having one’s identity denied is a problem.

In the quotes provided below, respondents are identified by gender,
age and, where known, occupation.

Analysis

What sites are problematic?

We were presented with many stories of encounters with a range of
authorities including police, teachers, health professionals, politicians
and Muslim leaders. Moreover, the flavour of these encounters differed
markedly. People reported both positive and negative experiences, but
also a degree of ambivalence where the ambiguity of the context made
it difficult to interpret authorities’ actions.

Amid this diversity, what stood out was that airports were
consistently and unambiguously identified by all but two interviewees
as a site of humiliation, distress and, in some cases, fear. There are
three things about people’s accounts of their encounters that signal
airports as a problematic site. First, whereas in other contexts people
often expressed uncertainty about how to attribute negative encoun-
ters with authorities, in the airport context this was not the case. All
those who talked about airport encounters were explicit that the basis
of their treatment was that they were Muslims and that anyone who
was Muslim (or fitted a Muslim stereotype) was open to similar
treatment. Indeed, for some there was a taken-for-granted quality to
these experiences: as one put it, ‘I should play the lottery because by
this probability I get pulled aside every time. But the point is, we all get
stopped’ (M, 40s, professional).

Second, there is a prototypical ‘Muslim airport story’: one that is
widely shared and provides a frame for how people interpret their
personal encounters with authorities. For instance, in this young man’s
account of being taken aside for questioning at the airport he instantly
recognizes the experience: ‘I knew where this was coming from, but it
was my first time being singled out’ (M, 28, youth worker). This can be
contrasted with a level of ambiguity which surrounds experiences at
different sites. Thus one respondent told a story about his experience
of attending a car accident involving his brother, where the police
threatened him with arrest if he did not move away from the car. He

I know who I am, but who do they think I am? 1097

commented: ‘I know why we get treated at airports like that, because
we’re Muslims. But whether that was to do with me being a Muslim, I
don’t know’ (M, 40s, businessperson).

Third, to say that there is a shared or prototypical Muslim story is
not to say that every Muslim we spoke to had a personal story to tell.
But, even in the absence of a personal story, the shadow of the
collective story was apparent. Most obviously, respondents felt
accountable for their lack of negative experience: it was something
that they had to remark upon. For example, one interviewee explained:
‘I’ll be honest with you. My experience at British border controls has
been quite positive’ (M, 50s, businessperson). This sense of embarrass-
ment at one’s own positive experiences violating the collective
experience conveys something of the powerful hold this narrative
may have within Muslim communities. It also suggests that positive
individual experiences may not be sufficient to overcome anxieties
about the airport.

What is problematic about airport experiences?

So, what is it about Muslims’ experiences at airports that make this
site so problematic? If we separate out the elements of the prototypical
‘Muslim airport story’ we can easily locate the problem in the
humiliation of being pulled aside in full view of other passengers
and subjected to seemingly irrelevant and misguided questions and
petty discourtesies such as keeping loved ones waiting. But the
problem goes beyond these practices. It lies in what these practices
communicate about how one is regarded. In other words, issues of
identity emerge as being of central importance. However, this took a
number of different forms implicating different identities: (a) national
(Scottish) identity; (b) ‘respectable’ identities; (c) Muslim identity.

National identity. Our research was conducted in Scotland, and,
when speaking more generally about their relationships with autho-
rities and the broader community, many of our interviewees expressed
pride in and affection for Scotland. Scotland was described as a place
where Muslims had ‘established good relations with the indigenous
population’ (M, 40s, businessperson) and felt a sense of belonging.
This was frequently contrasted with the greater tensions perceived to
exist over the border, in England. In the extract below we see an
eloquent expression of frustration from a Scottish-born young man
who, however much he might feel Scottish, also reports being made to
feel as the other.

Extract 1: For me to be singled out felt where am I now? This is my
home, I consider Scotland my home. Why am I being stopped in my

1098 Leda Blackwood et al.

own house? Why am I felt, being made to feel as the other in my
own house? (M, 28, youth worker)

What is described here is hurt and confusion at being denied an
important social identity; of being cast out from the group and
positioned as other and alien. The extremity and illegitimacy of such
an experience is further emphasized in the next extract by the use of a
telling contrast:

Extract 2: To be treated like that when you’re a citizen, you know
you don’t even get that kind of treatment if you’re going abroad to a
foreign country where you are foreign. You’re the alien in that
society. So I mean, it’s not a pleasant experience. (M, 31,
professional)

The irony here is that national identity is something that is generally
taken for granted. Airports are one of the few places where it is made
explicit. It is not just that the practice of passing through border
control requires one to produce documentation of one’s national
identity, it is also that one has a sense of returning ‘home’ and one
might even expect to be welcomed home. It is precisely at this point
that Muslims experience being made to feel even less at home than
when going abroad.

‘Respectable’ identities. Although we would expect national identities
to be particularly relevant and salient in the context of airport
experiences � and indeed they were � other identities too were clearly
implicated. For instance, people expressed shock at not being
recognized as respectable, moderate, law-abiding and contributing
members of society. Older participants in particular referred to these
identities. Typically such participants were reasonably sanguine in
their acceptance of the need for greater security measures at airports,
and some were involved with the authorities in combating extremism.
But, as apparent with the respondent below, rather than this lessening
the affront at being repeatedly stopped and questioned at airports, it
could have the opposite effect. He describes the experience as shocking
precisely because his self-conception was of someone who enjoys high
status and respectability in the community, and who is on the side of
countering extremism.

Extract 3: I find it shocking that in my forties, a businessman here,
people like me are actively engaged in sort of counteracting
extremism because we, people like myself are liberal thinking we
try and show a different face to Islam. And people like me are being
harassed at airports. (M, 40s, businessperson)

I know who I am, but who do they think I am? 1099

Muslim identity. If the problem lies in being defined as ‘other’, then it
is not only a matter of what valued identities are being denied to
people, it is also a matter of what identities are ascribed to them. If
people are being told that they are not Scottish and that they are not
respectable, how are they being defined? Or, to cite the continuation of
M, (28, youth worker)’s complaint about being othered in his own
‘home’ and ‘house’: ‘I know who I am, but who does he feel I am
now?’

In our interviews there is a clear answer to this question � a shared
meta-representation that one is perceived as Muslim. That in itself is
not problematic: it is an identity that participants are invested in and
proud of. Rather, what is problematic is the way that this category is
defined. As one of the interviewees explains, this is communicated in
deeds as much (if not more than) in words. For him the style to the
interaction communicated much: ‘Just the way they treated me, you
know like, you interrogate me as though I was a criminal and terrorist,
you know?’ (M, 50s, community leader).

What is at issue here is more than simply a matter of negative
stereotyping. It is the fundamental misrecognition involved in using an
identity which, for our interviewees, was a source of morality and
inclusion as a basis for ascribing immorality and justifying exclusion.
One aspect of this has to do with criminality. Consider, for instance,
the following extract from an interviewee who had been involved in
illegal activities in his youth, who had found his salvation through
Islam, and who was now working to help young Muslims find strength
in their faith:

Extract 4: I was you know a shop-lifter amongst people. I broke
every law there was probably because I was a drug addict. So
actually following my religion made me stop all these bad things and
actually I’ve become a better person. (M, 39, student)

Another aspect of the affront to participants’ Muslim identities
concerned gender relations. Participants’ understood their Muslim
identity as a basis for sexual morality and Muslim practices are
presented as sustaining moral behaviour. Yet participants judged that
what they took to be markers of purity were misread as markers of
danger. Indeed, one observed that they would be better treated if they
discarded their purity: referring to travelling with ‘a sister who’s
wearing the hijab’, one male complained:

Extract 5: Had she been dressed as a slapper let’s say and she was
holding onto, clinging onto my arm, we would have just boogied on
through like two lovebirds and then nothing would have happened.
(M, 40s, professional)

1100 Leda Blackwood et al.

To add one more twist to this tale, several of our interviewees
stressed the way in which the values of their faith not only sustained
their morality but also connected them to the best of British values.
Indeed, especially among our younger respondents, many felt that
their religiosity outweighed their particular brand of religion, and
made them more in tune with authentic Britishness than most white
British youth who had succumbed to a culture of partying, drinking
and promiscuity.

Extract 6: What British means to me is that Britain and many other
countries are based on core values. Core values that are intrinsic to
my faith and probably relevant to Britain is Christian values. I think
that’s what it ultimately means to be British. I don’t have to watch
Eastenders to be British. I don’t have to watch Match of the Day to
be British. (M, 28, youth worker)

In other words, for some participants the irony is that in the name of
protecting Britishness and the British way of life they felt they were
being asked to disavow the very things that tied them to Britishness in
the first place. In a nutshell, the source of their belonging was being
mutated into the warrant for their ‘othering’.

Reviewing these data it appears that, at every level, participants
reported being denied the identities that matter to them. Their
Scottishness and Britishness is put in question, as are their claims to
respectability. Moreover, while their Muslim identity is acknowledged
(indeed imposed to the exclusion of all else), its meanings are so
inverted as to become something in which they no longer recognize
themselves.

Why is the airport experience problematic?

In the section above we have shown that the problem of encounters
with authority at airports lies in the denial of identity. From the
extracts above, it is clear that this is more than an intellectual concern.
There is a ubiquitous feeling of rejection, of hurt and of humiliation.
In this section we ask why the denial of identity is experienced as so
problematic. Our answer is that identity is not simply important as a
way of looking at oneself and looking at the world. It also has real
consequences for what we can do. To be denied an identity is to be
denied a position from which one can act upon the world. That is, our
interviewees may feel that they are British or feel that they are Muslim,
but they cannot be British or be Muslim as they would like.

Loss of agency as British. Thus far we have considered participants’
reports that the way they are treated communicates the fact that the

I know who I am, but who do they think I am? 1101

authorities (and the society) do not see them as fully British. That is
about how they are acted upon, but what about the ways they act
themselves?

Consider the response of one of our interviewees who was stopped
and interviewed as she passed through the airport. She described
herself as ‘boiling’ because she was thinking ‘why do they have to do it
to me? Why don’t they stop the Scottish woman?’ She asserted strongly
that her treatment was unwarranted because she had done nothing
wrong. But, still, she did not challenge the authorities and when asked
whether she felt that she could, said:

Extract 7: I guess the way you see on the news that they lock up
anybody these days. You can just say that you’re against the war in
Iraq and they’ll lock you up. It’s almost that kind of thing do you
know what I mean? (F, 29, homemaker)

As many of our interviewees saw it, the problem is that in the post 9/11
period, the national security agenda gives authorities absolute power
and the ability to exercise their power in an arbitrary fashion,
especially where Muslims are concerned. This is compounded by a
sense that one’s peers have themselves bought into the othering of
Muslims and hence cannot be relied upon to challenge what the
authorities do. In some accounts participants reported that the image
of Muslims meant their fellow passengers were cautious, and, sensing
this, participants felt unable to behave in ways that they normally
would. For example, one reported that when queuing in the airport he
felt inhibited with regards to interacting with fellow passengers:

Extract 8: I like to see the funny things in life, right? And you can’t
joke and you can’t really chat with people in the queue while you’re
waiting for security because they just don’t want to be associated
with you. (M, 40s, businessperson)

However, sometimes participants reported more than feeling inhibited
from interacting with fellow passengers. They also felt vulnerable to
overt hostility:

Extract 9: So it happened in public and it happened while other
people who had been on that plane with me, they’re walking past.
That happened in my home city so there could have been people
who knew me. And that, that then, again it comes down to self-
consciousness. It’s like how I felt other people are perceiving me by
being pulled over and being questioned, you know? And it’s not a
nice feeling. Even when you’re walking around after that you’re

1102 Leda Blackwood et al.

thinking, who saw that? You’re looking over your shoulder thinking
is somebody going to shout something at me? (M, 20s, professional)

Faced with the power of the authorities and deprived of support from
their peers, it is not surprising that our interviewees felt that they had
little room for manoeuvre. To insist on their rights would only open
them to further difficulties. So, on the whole, they reported staying
silent. But, they also experienced a sense that in doing so they failed to
act as Britons would be expected to act. One of our older respondents
made the point that this was particularly galling for younger people
who have always lived in the UK: ‘They’ve been born and brought up
here in a way that they have freedom of speech and they have their
rights. But that’s where they get annoyed’ (M, 40s, businessperson). It
is not clear from this exactly where the problem lies. Is it that people
are annoyed only with the authorities for denying them the ability to
enact their identity or is it also in part a sense of annoyance at
themselves for having accepted the position to which they had been
ascribed? This becomes slightly clearer in the last section of our
analysis which addresses issues of agency as they relate to Muslim
identity.

Loss of agency as Muslim. If our interviewees felt incapable of acting
as good Britons, they also felt unable to act as good Muslims insofar
as any sign of Muslim identity could be taken as a sign of danger and
hence lead them into trouble. The most obvious example of this was
where people spoke about women removing the headscarf before
entering the airport. But there were other more subtle examples. Here
we find a young woman who, on the one hand, understands her
obligation as a good Muslim to be accepting of people’s stares and to
engage with people’s (mis)understanding of her faith, but who, on the
other hand, feels unable to deal with the sheer weight of scrutiny:

Extract 10: You get stares and things but you always just smile and
then sometimes it can get a bit stressful because you don’t want to
be so obvious all the time, and you just want to kind of push it in the
background and people maybe not to ask you questions or you
know. We just say that it’s you know, it’s from Allah. If he wants
people to ask then they’re gonna ask you and you have to be
prepared for the questions. (F, 27, student)

If this respondent feels, at least in part, some responsibility for
succumbing to the weight of othering, the respondent below is equally
troubled by feeling implicated in the process of othering fellow
passengers who appear Muslim. In the extract below this participant

I know who I am, but who do they think I am? 1103

reports how he found himself looking at other Muslims in a way that
he finds painful:

Extract 11: I will be now looking at, you know, Asian people and
Middle Eastern origin people who are sitting in the plane with me.
You know to see if everything’s okay � what they’re doing � just in
case, if they look dodgy in any way or anything like that. But it’s
beneath your brain-washing. (M, 40s, businessperson)

What is debilitating in this is that again, people are isolated, not just
from other British passengers, but from other (British) Muslim
passengers. Thus this participant reports feeling cut off from the
very people with whom in the context of airports he shares a common
experience. Moreover, this means that he is denied the agency that
comes from the recognition of this shared experience and the
possibility of support and solidarity. Indeed, inasmuch as being seen
as other and dangerous is a shared Muslim experience, what is most
humiliating and most debilitating is that one is turning not just against
others, but against oneself.

Discussion

Our data reveal several striking findings. Among our interviewees
there was a general consensus that airports were problematic and a
shared understanding of what happens at airports. Whether correct or
not, our participants had a sense that if they were stopped it was
because they were Muslim, and indeed that being stopped is what
happens to Muslims.

In part, this specific focus on airports may reflect the middle-class
skew in our sample. Other Muslims, from less affluent backgrounds
and who travel less, might have stressed other encounters as well as, or
even rather than, those in airports. However, first, it is worth pointing
out that what our respondents had to say about airports as a site of
concern did not always relate to their own individual experience.
Rather it related to a shared understanding of what happens to
Muslims in general. It was a social representation (Farr and Moscovici
1984). Second, what concerns us, and where we wish to make claims to
generality, has less to do with the site of problematic encounters than
with the processes which render the encounter problematic.

With regard to the issue of what makes airport experiences
problematic, then, we found references to a sense of injustice, often
implicit in the very claim that one had been stopped simply as a
Muslim and without any good reason. But the accounts also featured
an emphasis on humiliation. This is a topic that is receiving increasing
attention in sociological and historical analyses (e.g. Lindner, 2006)

1104 Leda Blackwood et al.

but which is strangely neglected in psychology. People gave eloquent
accounts of the humiliating experience of being picked out, of being
positioned as criminal and, above all, of this happening in public
under the gaze of their fellow passengers. But they were equally
eloquent about the fact that what made this experience humiliating
had to do with identity � or, rather, the denial of identity. To sit in
shame before their peers was to be denied the identities that gave them
position and pride in society. This suggests that analyses of humilia-
tion need to pay more attention to the dynamics of identity, but
equally that the analysis of identity dynamics needs to pay greater
attention to the experience of humiliation.

Another aspect of the interviews that struck us was the range of
identities implicated in airport encounters. It is, perhaps, to be
expected that national identity is made salient, and that to be picked
out for harsh treatment is experienced as a denial of one’s national
status (Zine 2002). Equally, given that airport security practices are
intimately bound up with the global fears of ‘Muslim extremism’, it is
to be expected that Muslim identity is made salient and that to be
picked out as a Muslim for harsh treatment is experienced as affirming
the pathologization of Islam. But our participants also reported
finding a range of ‘respectable’ identities compromised: as a profes-
sional, a businessperson, a community elder and so on. Perhaps most
interesting were the dynamics surrounding gender practices. Both male
and female participants saw Muslim women’s dress as a source of
morality and pride, and to find Muslim women subjected to looks that
were hostile could be deeply upsetting.

It might seem self-evident that humiliation and the denial of status
would be strongly aversive. However, our interviewees indicated that
the issue was not simply esteem, but action. Insofar as identity is not
just about seeing but about being, what mattered was that the denial of
one’s valued identities denied people the basis for acting on their own
terms. Being pressured to take up the positions imposed by others,
with the associated mores, they lost their autonomy and agency.
Moreover, this was not just a function of external pressures; it was also
a matter of self-policing. The problems were therefore compounded by
a sense of being complicit in and responsible for one’s plight.

It is important to clarify this argument in two ways. First, our
analysis focuses on participants’ own understandings � in this case,
their own sense of complicity and responsibility. We, as analysts, are
certainly not seeking to attribute blame. Indeed, it is arguable that one
of the most painful aspects of the airport experience is the way in
which fear and isolation make self-repression one of the few viable
strategies to avoid trouble. Second, we should not overstate the loss of
autonomy and agency: people did not always feel impelled to abandon
their identity practices or incapable of responding. Indeed, elsewhere

I know who I am, but who do they think I am? 1105

we have reported instances in which Muslim passengers refused to
comply with stop and search requests and explored how such refusals
could be seen as assertions of the right to be treated with respect and
on terms that accord with one’s own self-definition (Hopkins and
Blackwood 2011).

Our key claims must be calibrated against the limitations of our data.
Our sample is not, and was not intended to be, representative of British
or Scottish Muslims. Accordingly we make no generalized claims about
this population, either in relation to the incidence of airport stops or in
relation to their impact. Nor do we have ethnographic data of actual
encounters or data of interviews with the officers involved. Undoubt-
edly, analyses of such materials would allow investigations of the bases
for officers’ decision-making and the degree to which Muslims are
targeted unfairly. However, such questions are rather different from
those that motivated the research reported here where we are simply
interested in identifying the sorts of encounters Muslims found
problematic and the degree to which their identity featured in their
accounts of why these encounters were so painful. In answering these
latter questions, we can say that, for our particular sample, airports were
a key site for our interviewees and that their concerns involved issues of
identity and especially the loss of identity (with all that this means for
being able to act on one’s own terms). For the future, we need to ask
whether the same or other sites are equally important to other groups of
Muslims; whether similar processes of identity denial and humiliation
are equally central to problematic encounters, wherever they occur; and
whether such processes are also relevant to the encounters that non-
Muslim groups have with authority (e.g. police stop and search of
working-class and black youth).

Putting these themes together adds to the general argument that
Muslims’ sense of being part of (British) society (or of being outside
that society) cannot be understood by reference to Muslim identity
alone. It develops (in part at least) out of interactions with (British)
authorities where people experience whether their claims to inclusion
are accepted or refused. In saying this, we do not deny that there may
be voices within the Muslim community arguing that (British) society
is alien and that Muslims should have nothing to do with it. But the
appeal of those voices will be moderated by how people are treated by
those seen to represent this society (cf. Drury and Reicher 2009). For
this, if for no other reason, we should resist calls to focus entirely on
the mote in the eye of the other and to ignore those in our own.

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Scottish Institute of Policing
Research.

1106 Leda Blackwood et al.

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1108 Leda Blackwood et al.

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